The adventures of Gary and Carolyn living aboard and continuously cruising the uk canals and rivers on narrowboat Inca

Wednesday, 9 November 2016

Goldprick

With our time up in Paddington basin we pulled ropes through bollards at 07.55 and after winding (turning) headed out of the basin.

This strange looking boat is one of the London canals clean up boats The only problem is that they only seem to operate where there are lots of people and Gongoozlers and tend to ignore the rest of the canal network.

After 2 weeks on one tank of water we were getting a bit low so we pulled in at Little Venice for a fill up.It isn't the easiest water point to get on as for some reason (money no doubt) there is a cafe boat moored on the water point, so its a case of getting your bow in and climbing through the railings.With it not being the fastest filling tap it took us just under an hour to fill up.

On our way out on the Paddington arm we soon passed this boat. With a paint job like that and fake grass on the roof you certainly know you are in London.

Not really a canal boat ,but I just loved his under sized Anchor.

Every time we pass this building in Kensal we are always amazed at its design. Its called Trellick tower and is a 31-storey block of flats in Kensal Town, Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London England. It was designed in the Brutalist style by architect Ernő Goldfinger, after a commission from the Greater London Council in 1966, and completed in 1972. It is a Grade II listed building and is 98 metres (322 ft) tall (120 metres (394 ft) including the communications mast).

Goldfinger was known as a humourless man given to notorious rages. He sometimes fired his assistants if they were inappropriately jocular. Even James Bond creator Ian Fleming had a beef with poor old Ernő, naming one of his most famous villains, Auric Goldfinger, after the architect in revenge for his bulldozing of a number of Victorian villas in order to build his own modern home at Willow Road in Hampstead.

Goldfinger being a humourless man - threatened to sue over the slur, but allegedly backed down when Fleming suggested changing the name to 'Goldprick' instead.

We did consider travelling across London and doing the River Lea and Stort but with a stoppage on this bridge which is 7D on the Paddington arm we decided to head out of the capital.

After a good three hour cruise we picked up this mooring at Yeading. It’s somewhere that we were told along time ago as a place not to moor as there was a history of dog fights and unruly behaviour in the park. After speaking to a couple of other boaters who had moored there recently with out having a problem we I decided to give it a go . (watch this space)

Hi Marilyn , Our water tank is 130 gallons ,just under 600 litres. We always go into water saving mode as once you leave your mooring in London you won't get it back . When we shower by being economic and not wollowing in it we reckon to use a gallon and a half each every day we shower, so that s only 42 gallons for the two weeks. We don't run the washing machine till we come out and then there's about 10 loads to do...We are then just careful with what water we use..

Hi Carol . It was OK there and we had no problems although Carolyn did talk to a local lady dog walker who said there has been problems there in the past and she didn't recommend going through the park at night . Yes Carolyn found the Tesco and did a small shop there ..